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  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] morpho-syntax,was Proverbs 5:16 a declaration oraquestion?
  • Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2005 12:40:00 -0500

Harold:

> >
> > Whereas in English, the grammatical form indicating a question is the
> > word order, that is not true in B-Hebrew. However, Bryan has shown that
> > certain word constructs counterindicate questions, even the understanding
> > of a statement as a question, among those the particular word structure
> > found in Proverbs 5:16. There is no grammatical indication that it is a
> > question, and I see no need to read it as a question.

> HH: The context shows that Prov 5:16 is a question. There can be
> grammatically unmarked questions in Hebrew. This is probably the last
> comment that I am going to make on this thread, since I am just repeating
> myself.
>
>
> Yours,
> Harold Holmyard

Look again at the context in Proverbs 5, which you summon as your witness and
support. The context is that of one wife that is for the person alone. Verses
15-19 refer to the married state, verse 20 to someone not one's wife.

Now what are "your springs" (plural) that are dispersed abroad? Doesn't this
contradict the single well and spring that is one's wife? How does this
plural of springs fit in a context talking about a singular one? It is this
very context, which I know only from Hebrew, that makes all the translations
you have referrenced wrong.

If we insist that M(YNTYK is a plural belonging to the student, the context
makes sense if one reads it as a rare but grammatically allowed simple plural
of "eyes" with a prefixed M- and the idea that what is not one's wife is
dispersed abroad, the opposite of held tightly, namely the channels of water,
i.e. other women. This also fits the context of the other statements in
Proverbs that deal with sexual relations with women.

While it is good to attend to what others have said in the past, I don't
think that a slavish adherence to tradition or what others say is the proper
way to study a text. That is especially true in passages that are difficult
to read as is this one. In that tradition I include the Masoritic points,
which while I think they are correct as indicators of meaning maybe 99% of
the time, they are wrong often enough that in passages that are difficult to
impossible to read without adding or subtracting from the text, the points
also can be questioned. For me the consonental text is primary, all else can
and may be questioned.

Karl W. Randolph.
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  • Re: [b-hebrew] morpho-syntax,was Proverbs 5:16 a declaration oraquestion?, Karl Randolph, 01/03/2005

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